Southern charms with a Grimm twist.

Theater
Local director Megan Skye Hale’s Br’er Rose is a formidable re-creation of the earliest versions of Sleeping Beauty.
The story, a princess cursed to sleep for 100 years, remains intact.
Hale
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A review of Northwest Classical's production of Beaumont and Fletcher's 1619 revenge play.

Arts & Books
Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher’s rarely staged 1619 revenge play The Maid’s Tragedy, like Jacobean tragedy more generally, anticipates film noir in both its fixation on female sexuality and its resolutely bleak atmosphere. Hapless hero Amintor (Steve Vanderzee) faces a situation as simple and ferocious as a bear trap: He discovers on his wedding night that his new marriage is a sham, cooked ...
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A review of Bag & Baggage's holiday spoof.

Arts & Books
In the green- and red-tinted pantheon of Christmas classics, Miracle on 34th Street is perhaps one of the more poignant and touching tales. Which, of course, makes it perfect fodder for a spoof, and Scott Palmer, artistic director of Hillsboro's Bag & Baggage Productions, is not one to let the opportunity for parody pass him by. Hence A Miracle on 43rd Street: A Holiday Radio Massacre, the second ...
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A review of Triangle Productions' egg-obsessed comedy.

Arts & Books
Which came first, the chicken or the egg? The answer doesn’t matter much to the main characters in 5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche, as long as there are eggs, and plenty of them. Set in 1956 in an unnamed town, the comedy—written by Evan Linder and Andrew Hobgood and presented by Triangle Productions—centers on the Susan B. Anthony Society for the Sisters of Gertrude Stein. As the play begins, ...
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A review of CoHo Productions' season opener.

Arts & Books
Do not enter Coho Theater for ‘Night, Mother expecting to be anything but emotionally wrecked. Marsha Norman’s Pulitzer-winning drama centers on the aging Thelma, content with watching TV for the rest of her days, and Jessie, the 30-something divorced daughter who cares meticulously for her, right down to filling her candy jar each night. The play opens with a sudden and shocking profession ...
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A review of Imago Theatre's production of Harold Pinter's landmark 1964 play.

Arts & Books
Harold Pinter never revealed what his plays were about. Indeed, the British dramatist would probably have chafed at the mere suggestion that his plays were “about” anything. For Pinter, the stage was a place for ambiguity—and for combat. His characters use words less to transmit meaning than to launch ammunition, which often renders them less-than-pleasant company. That’s the case in ...
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A review of Defunkt Theatre's season opener.

Arts & Books
High school is a jungle—and in Defunkt Theatre's In the Forest, She Grew Fangs, sometimes literally so. Stephen Spotswood’s play follows two teenage girls, Lucy Maggard (Marisol Ceballos) and Jenny McConnick (Tabitha Trosen), both haunted by social media at a high school in an unnamed small town. For Jenny, a California transplant whose brain is overlooked for her body, it's a topless picture ...
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